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Dilba: Difference between revisions
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Some regular words that have only one mutable consonant can form the first three patterns, some may also expand their consonantal root by ''t<sub><small>#</small></sub>'' to the left to gain access to more patterns. Again, note that in Dilba hieroglyphs e.g. 'man' and 'god' are indistinguishable in this script. However, the term ''g<sub><small>2</small></sub>at<sub><small>0</small></sub>'' is an often used epithet for gods. | Some regular words that have only one mutable consonant can form the first three patterns, some may also expand their consonantal root by ''t<sub><small>#</small></sub>'' to the left to gain access to more patterns. Again, note that in Dilba hieroglyphs e.g. 'man' and 'god' are indistinguishable in this script. However, the term ''g<sub><small>2</small></sub>at<sub><small>0</small></sub>'' is an often used epithet for gods. | ||
== Orthography and Phonology == | |||
=== Latin Orthography === | |||
The Dilba consonants are arranged depending on the number of possible mutation. As mentioned above, the first group are the root consonants, which have two possible mutations. It turns out that the first kind of mutation changes stops to fricatives, the second to nasals. Aspirated stops were formerly mutated to voiceless nasals, which got later in free variation to [h]. | |||
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" | |||
|- | |||
!Latin character | |||
|p||b||f||v||t||d||c||g||k||q | |||
|- | |||
!Unmutated pronunciation | |||
|[p<sup><small>h</small></sup>]||[p]||[t<sup><small>h</small></sup>]||[t]||[tʃ<sup><small>h</small></sup>]||[tʃ]||[k]||[k<sup><small>h</small></sup>]||[q<sup><small>h</small></sup>]||[q] | |||
|- | |||
!Pronunciation of the first mutation | |||
|[ɸ]||[β]||[θ]||[ð]||[ʃ]||[ʒ]||[x]||[ɣ]||[χ]||[ʁ] | |||
|- | |||
!Pronunciation of the second mutation | |||
|[m̥]||[m]||[n̥]||[n]||[ɲ̊]||[ɲ]||[ŋ̊]||[ŋ]||[ɴ̥]||[ɴ] | |||
|} | |||
There is a second group of root consonants which are represented by the upper-case versions of the letters above. These phonemes are pronounced the same as the lower-case letters but affect the pronunciation of adjacent vowels. The third group are the so-called linking consonants because they often are the middle consonant in a three consonant root. These consonants do not have mutations anymore with the exception of ''s'' which has preserved the old mutation ''h''. Unlike in the Latin script, the Dilba hieroglyphs do not distinguish between ''s'' and ''h''. However, this mutation is no longer productive. | |||
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" | |||
|- | |||
!Latin character | |||
|s||z||r||l||n | |||
|- | |||
!Unmutated pronunciation | |||
|[s]||[z]||[r]||[l]||[n] | |||
|- | |||
!Mutated character | |||
|h | |||
|colspan="4"| | |||
|- | |||
!Mutated pronunciation | |||
|[h] | |||
|colspan="4"| | |||
|} | |||
A characteristic of ''n'' is that its place of articulation can be changed by directly adjacent root consonants, e.g. ''anb'' [ämp]. The intervocalic, word final and initial pronunciation is [n]. The fourth and last group are consonants that have vocalic realisations under certain circumstances. The consonantal and vocalic realisations are written with different letters in the Latin script. The letter ''a'' has a mutation to ''y''. Again, both this mutation and the vocalic or consonantal realisations are not distinguished in the hieroglyphic script. | |||
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" | |||
|- | |||
!Consonantal realisation | |||
|h||j||w | |||
|- | |||
!Pronunciation | |||
|[ħ]||[j]||[w] | |||
|- | |||
!Vocalic realisation | |||
|a||i||u | |||
|- | |||
!Mutated character | |||
|y | |||
|colspan="2"| | |||
|} | |||
Note the ambiguity of the letter ''h'' in the latin script: It denotes either the consonantal realisation of ''a'' or the mutation of ''s''. In Dilba hieroglyphs, these two versions of ''h'' are distinguished but as well ''s'' and ''h'' as ''a'' and ''h'' overlap. | |||